PETALING JAYA (April 18): Malaysia Aviation Group Bhd (MAG), the parent company of national carrier Malaysia Airlines Bhd, has confirmed that it has filed for an injunction to stop AirAsia from selling Malaysia Airlines tickets on its airasia Super App.

“Yes, I would like to confirm that we have filed for the injunction as we were not able to reach a commercial agreement before this and they continued to sell our inventory,"  MAG group managing director Captain Izham Ismail told a press conference on Tuesday (April 18). The matter was revealed by Transport Minister Anthony Loke on Monday.

Izham said AirAsia’s Super App is an online travel agency (OTA) and that it takes seats from aggregators and consolidators, namely kiwi.com, which is not Malaysia Airlines' partner.

“All airlines would want to work with OTAs, consolidators, aggregators and travel agents. But they must have a commercial agreement first because OTAs will do a mark up, and [there is the matter of] after-sales service — those are key issues we need to resolve before we sign up with an OTA,” he said.

Izham said the commercial agreement is important to protect consumers as it enables the sharing of information, allows airlines to contact customers in the case of a flight delay or cancellation, and provides avenues for customers to seek refunds.

“60% of our inventory is being sold directly by us on our website; about 25% to 30% are by travel agents, 5% by ticketing offices while 12% by OTAs like Expedia and many more,” according to Izham.

Meanwhile, MAG said the group’s positive cash balance stood at RM4.56 billion as at Dec 31, 2022,  more than double the RM2.04 billion it had at end 2021, thanks to positive operating cash flow, which the group attributed to strong cost discipline and forward sales.

“With the amount of cash we have today, if another pandemic happens, it will be able to take us across another 18 to 24 months,” Izham said.

Notably, its operating daily cash flow performance was a positive RM7.1 million in FY2022, compared to the prior year's negative RM2.7 million.

As such, Izham said no drawdown was required in 2022 from the balance RM2.3 billion capital injection allocated by Khazanah Nasional Bhd, and the group’s management expects the same for 2023. 

A total RM3.6 billion capital injection was prepared to support Malaysia Airlines' post-Covid-19 restructuring from 2021 to 2025. Of the total, RM1.3 billion has been drawn down to support the airline's recovery in 2021.

Khazanah is a sovereign fund and the sole shareholder of MAG.

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